Truce
by MedusaOfTheSpecies
Summary: It takes years, a war and and falling in love, but Draco Malfoy finds himself reaching a truce with Daphne Greengrass.


**A/N: Written for the 5 plus 1 competition (Five times Draco and Daphne hated each other and the one time they reached an agreement), the Chutes and Ladders Challenge (prompt: take my hand) and the Ultimate Patronus Challenge (G, Birds-7. Write about Draco Malfoy)**

Draco Malfoy is eight years old when he first meets Daphne Greengrass. Their both both dressed up to the nines and when he asks her to accompany him in a dance, Daphne says yes. This is the ideal they've been brought up with: good, pureblood children who are capable of doing a dance effortlessly without embarrassing their respective family names.

That's not how it turns out:

Before they are even a minute into their dance, Daphne discovers that Draco Malfoy is a disgusting, bigoted pig. Draco thinks Daphne Greengrass is stuck-up snob. While their parental units watch carefully and subtly discuss marriage contracts, Draco steps on Daphne's feet at every chance he gets. During the lift portion, Daphne subtly knees Draco in the balls.

Later, when they are both safe in their manor halls, Narcissa Malfoy will take her son aside.

"Draco, would you enjoy a marriage to the Greengrass girl?" Narcissa Malfoy will ask, because she out of all people knows how it feels to have a marriage contract turn your life around. "You two made a lovely match at the ball tonight."

Draco, who has witnessed Daphne smile sweetly while mimicking slicing his neck, shudders involuntarily.

"How about the Parkinson girl instead?" He asks, smiling weakly.

* * *

The next time Draco Malfoy sees Daphne Greengrass, he is eleven and fuming. How dare Potter, the mudblood sympathizer, make the Quidditch team, while he, the Malfoy heir, didn't?

He's got to deal with the problem, Draco decides and decides to write his father a letter. Surely his father will know how to deal with Dumbledore's stupid decisions.

He's almost there when she appears, seemingly out of nowhere, a terror in Slytherin green and silver. Theodore Nott, a fellow pureblood, lingered behind reading as Daphne approached, blond ponytail swinging as she smirked at Draco.

"It's a shame isn't it, to look at what kind of scum Dumbledore is letting into our school?" Daphne said conversationally.

Draco paused, scrutinizing, before nodding hesitantly. A few seconds passed, however; after that Draco couldn't contain himself and burst into a rant.

"Honestly, it's disgusting! My father, he's a governor on the board of this school, as you well know-"

Draco was about to let the rest of his hatred be known, but the sound of laughter yanked him out of his reverie.

Daphne Greengrass was chuckling, attempting to hide her giggles behind her hand. Nott, behind her still, was coughing amusedly.

"What do you too find so find so funny?" Draco demanded.

Nott sighed. "The scum she's referring to- it means you."

Draco felt like all the air had been yanked out of his lungs and could do nothing but stand there, speechless, mouth dropped open.

Still laughing, Daphne wiggled her fingers before disappearing out the door, Nott behind her.

* * *

He doesn't see Greengrass for three years after that. Well, he sees her, but they don't talk to each other, just exchange hostile glances from across the room.

He makes a disgusted face at her when Nott twirls her around at the Yule Ball- he can see the promise ring on her finger and he feels a faint ping of pity for the poor man who's promised his whole life away to a girl like Greengrass.

She laughs at him from across the common room when Pansy hangs on him so closely that their almost one person. He scowls and pushes her off, mouthing a swearword back at Greengrass.

It's the calm before the storm, lava bubbling under the earth's crust, and it never lasts long.

* * *

The explosion hits the year he gets the dark mark splattered on his arm like a commitment that chills him down to the bones, compressing him into a caricature of a man he could have (should have) been.

She's sitting on the fence near the giants hut, Blaise Zabini on one side of her and her sister (Astelia? Asteria? He won't learn the younger Greengrasses name for years after that) on the other. Nott's not around and Blaise is a coward, so Draco doesn't even think twice about walking past her. He's the one with the power this time around.

She's laughing at something when he walks past her, but he can see the tension in her shoulders.

 _Good_ he thinks with satisfaction. She deserves nothing less for being a coward. After all, everyone knows just how quickly the Greengrasses were to cling to their neutral status. Then, it hits him, the perfect way to get her back.

He strolls towards her. "Hey Greengrass, how's your father doing?" Her father's dead and her expression of pure hatred makes him feel beyond delighted.

"My father may be six feet under, but he's still doing better than your entire loathsome family combined. How does daddy Malfoy looking when he's locked in Azkaban? Or do they not allow budding death eaters to visit?" She snaps back, an expression of pure venom on her face. Zabini laughs.

He feels pure rage at that moment, bubbling in his soul until he's right beside her, face as close as he can get. She's higher, seated on the fence, but he's taller and he's never felt more dangerous.

Her sister shoots him a warning look, but he ignores it.

"At least my parents are going to be honored when the Dark Lord takes over. It's only a matter of time before families like yours are going to be made an example of." He's crossed the line now, they both have, but he continues anyways. "And how's your mother doing? I heard she's hit some trouble with the inheritance."

He knows somethings wrong when she doesn't anger more, just sits back, arms crossed and head high. "Well Malfoy, when the Dark Lord comes back, I might die but I'm taking you down with me. Pinky promise, darling."

* * *

He's never felt worse than he does when Snape kills Dumbledore for him. He's failed them all: His mother, His aunt, his father, the Dark Lord.

Harry Potter chases Snape, screaming about cowardness and Draco Malfoy thinks that might be the stupidest thing Potter has ever said, an accomplishment in itself. Potter wouldn't know cowardness if it slapped him in the face, a Gryffindor with righteousness making him ever dumber.

Draco drags himself to the wall, collapsing against the stone covering. Breathe in. Breathe out.

He thinks he might be a coward but he doesn't see much bravery on either side of the war so he wouldn't know.

He stays there for ages. No one's looking for a leftover Malfoy who couldn't even kill his headmaster. Tears start pouring out of his eyes sometime but he doesn't bother wiping them.

A few hours pass and it turns night before someone stumbles into his shadowed alcove. Daphne Greengrass: he doesn't need to open his eyes to recognize that it's her because she's always there in his worst moments.

"Crying alone?" She asks, not awaiting an answer before sliding down to the ground beside him.

"I was until you came around, Greengrass." He says, too tired to even bother insulting her.

"It's going to be a certain type of hell these next few years." She remarks idly, examining her finger nails.

"I don't want to do this anymore." He whispers, testing out the words on his tongue.

She rolls her eyes. "I know."

They stay there for a while longer before he feels her shift against him.

"Stay safe, Malfoy." She says, nodding her head at him before disappearing into the shadows.

* * *

He goes through torture and pain and hell then next two years and starts waking up screaming. His eyes are shadowed from sleepless nights where he cannot burn images of the war from his eyelids.

Granger screaming and twisting under his aunt's crucio. Potter dying and his mother kneeling over him to lie to Voldemort. Weaslette- all red hair and stubborn rage when he visits Hogwarts.

The female Weasley and Potter might just be the worst. He's put up with the same crucio Granger has during his aunt's lessons and Ronald Weasley is a disgusting demonstration of the worst kind of wizard. Longbottom is a hero and Draco has no patience for those, Lovegood is as barmy as they come, and Abott needs to learn how useless self-sacrifice is.

But Potter has a scar on his head that drags Draco straight into his nightmares, into the war. Potter may have rescued Draco from Azkaban but someday he feels that Dementors might have been better than being treated like a criminal.

Weaslette is the worst because he sees his father and the Dark Lord on her heels every time he sees her. His father slipped her the diary, he knows that, and the words that slip of her tongue are the same ones the Dark Lord dropped during his days in Malfoy Manor.

She's an endless reminder of all the horrors he's been a part of and he finally snaps. He can't live here anymore, can't live in a war-torn Britain unless he's willing to give up his sanity.

He purchases a portkey to France. The ministry has no idea about the summer house, couldn't have confiscated it.

And that's when it all changes. It goes like this: his mother throws him a goodbye party and the Greengrass sister he barely knew the name of is in attending. She turns his life upside down with every word and she drags him back into society, him kicking and screaming.

Astoria Greengrass is also the reason he ends up apologizing to Daphne.

"I'm sorry for how I was during my childhood." He says, trying to insert sincerity into his tone. It's hard, he's always been taught that Malfoy's don't apologize.

"Me too, I was a downright bitch." She says, and he tries not to cringe at her bluntness.

It obviously doesn't work, because she laughs at him before sticking out her hands. He looks at the offered hand suspiciously. One apology doesn't change the fact that he hated her.

"Just take my hand, Malfoy." She says, rolling her eyes. "I know that you we still don't like each other but I'm offering you a truce for Astoria's sake. She refuses to give you up, even though she deserves much better, and I don't want to lose her because I can't put aside childhood grievances."

"Truce." He says and shakes her hand.

It's for Astoria's sake and he'd do anything for the woman he loves.


End file.
